Professor Frank Furedi

About

I am Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research. I am a sociologist, social commentator and author of:

Paranoid Parenting (2001), Allen Lane (The Penguin Press)

Culture of Fear (2002), Continuum

Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability In An Uncertain Age (2003), Routledge

Where have All The Intellectuals Gone?: Confronting 21st Century Philistinism (2005), Continuum

Politics of Fear: Beyond Left and Right (2005), Continuum

Invitation to Terror: The Expanding Empire of the Unknown (2007), Continuum.

Authority: A Sociological History (2013)

Moral Crusades In an Age Of Mistrust: The Jimmy Savile Scandal (2013), Palgrave

The First World War: Still No End In Sight (2014), Bloomsbury Press

Power of Reading: From Socrates to Twitter (2015), Bloomsbury Press

My research is oriented towards the study of the workings of precautionary culture and risk aversion in Western societies. At present I am engaged with issues located at the border between historical and cultural
sociology. After completing a study of the sociological history of authority I am looking at the relationship between the contestation of cultural authority and literacy.

Education I completed my PhD in Research and MA in African Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies. I completed my BA in Political Science at McGill University.

Teaching

Research

Research interestsSince 1995, my work has explored the different manifestations of the way that contemporary western culture attempts to give meaning to social experience. The current problems that society has in engaging with uncertainty
have focused my interest on the workings of contemporary risk consciousness and loss aversion.

In 1995, I published a study on the international contraceptive pill panic of 1995, titled The International Impact of a Pill Panic. The varied response to this panic in different societies
led me to ask questions about why some cultures have a more developed consciousness of risk than others. Most of my work in recent years has been devoted to the development of a sociology of fear
and an exploration of the cultural developments that influence the construction of contemporary risk consciousness.

Different forms of social anxieties Although my work is strongly influenced by the insights of social constructionist sociology, my past training in field work and history bring to the study of social problems a historical and empirical
dimension. Elements of this approach are outlined in Population and Development (1997), The Silent War (1998) and in particular in The Culture of Fear (1997,
2002 – new revised edition 2007).

These three texts examine the problematisation of different forms of social anxieties (race, population and risk) and have provided me with an opportunity to elaborate a sociological approach that synthesises
the methods of historical inquiry with the insights of sociological investigation.

Paranoid Parenting (March 2001, Alan Lane/ Penguin, revised edition forthcoming October 2008) develops this approach in relation to social anxieties about childhood. This work will be developed
in a historical-sociological study of fear – the aim of this book is to outline the workings of the fear market and to isolate what constitutes our distinct 21st century rules of fear.

Since September 11, I have been exploring the way that the reaction to this event provides insights into the contemporary consciousness of risk and also the impact of this episode has influenced the public
perception of risk. A preliminary study, Refusing to be Terrorised; The Management of Risk After September 11, report, published by Lloyds/Global Futures, attempted to develop an analytic framework
for making sense of this dreaded form of risk. This research was further developed through a research project associated with the ESRC’s ‘The Domestic Management of Terrorist Attacks’
programme. The publication of my study Invitation To Terror (2007) expands the analysis of The Culture of Feart o the issue of terrorism.

Therapy Culture - Cultivating Vulnerability In An Anxious Age Alongside my study of risk consciousness, I have explored the cultural influences that have encouraged society to become risk-averse and to feel a heightened sense of vulnerability. The defining feature
of people is increasingly represented as their vulnerability and it is frequently suggested we live in an age where people's mental health and emotions are permanently under siege.

The cultural influences that promote a new version of diminished subjectivity constitute the subject of my recently published book, Therapy Culture - Cultivating Vulnerability In An Anxious Age.
Along with colleagues committed to the more robust version of personhood associated with the humanist tradition, I am engaged in a cultural critique of attempts to medicalise people's experiences and
behaviour.

As a humanist scholar committed to the promotion of an intellectually engaged public life I have sought to reflect on the contemporary challenges facing education, culture and intellectual life. My approach
towards these issues is outlined in the book Where Have All The Intellectual Gone; Confronting 21st Century Philistinism. At present I am engaged on a sociological history of literacy
and more specifically on the theme of what different societies have thought about the meaning of reading.

Planned research The main research problem underpinning my future work is the problem of authority today.
In contemporary times where authority has to continually justify itself and is continually contested the authority of authority requires reflection. Authority is not a taken-for-granted institution.
Indeed the age-long concern with ‘crisis of authority’ has expanded and encompasses questions such as ‘trust’, ‘confidence’ and ‘competing knowledge claims’.
Lack of certainty about the authority of authority is both an encouragement to claims- making and to its contestation.

My focus is on the contestation of cultural authority and I am working on a study of competing narratives of what reading means or should mean to people’s lives. This project, titled Reading: from Socrates To Twitter is supported by a grant from the British Academy and Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship

‘The objectification of fear and the grammar of morality’ in Hier, S. (ed.) Moral Panic and the Politics of Anxiety, Routledge ; London, 2011.

‘Introduction’ to the Marketisation of Higher Education and the Student as Consumer’, in Mike Molesworth, Richard Scullion, Elizabeth Nixon , Marketisation of Higher Education and the Student as Consumer,
Routledge. (2011).

‘Fear Rules; The expansion of the empire of the unknown’, Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (2008), Architectures of Fear; Terrorism and the Future of Urbanism in the West, Centre
of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona: Barcelona.

‘Medicalisation in a Therapy Culture’ in David Wainwright (ed) (2008) A Sociology of Health, Sage Publications: London.

Activity

Media appearances I’ve appeared on Newsnight, Sky and BBC News, Radio Four’s Today programme, and a variety of other radio television shows. Internationally, I’ve been interviewed by the media in Australia,
Canada, the United States, Poland, Holland, Belgium, Brazil, and Germany.

Editorial My articles have been published in the New Scientist, The Guardian, The Independent, The Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Express, The Daily Mail, The Wall Street Journal, The Independent on
Sunday, India Today, L’Espresso, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Sunday Telegraph, Toronto Globe and Mail, The Christian Science Monitor, The Times Higher Education Supplement, Spiked-online,
The Times Literary Supplement, Harvard Business Review, Die Welt and Die Zeit, among others.

Public speaking I am regulated invited as a guest public speakers and I have recently addressed: